1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure generally relates to an image forming apparatus having a carriage for holding a recording head, which is reciprocally moved in a main scanning direction, and a transport belt for transporting a recording sheet in a sub-scanning direction, in which an image is recorded on the recording sheet by using the recording head.
2. Description of the Background Art
Some image forming apparatuses have a configuration employing a carriage mounting a recording head (e.g., inkjet head), which is reciprocally moved in a main scanning direction, and a transport belt for transporting a recording sheet in a sub-scanning direction to record an image on the recording sheet by using the recording head. In such a configuration, the recording sheet is closely attracted to the transport belt, which is in an electrically charged state.
In such image forming apparatus, the carriage has a reflection sensor to detect a leading edge of a recording sheet. However, if the transport belt is contaminated, a leading edge of a recording sheet may not be correctly detected (i.e., missed detection).
One background art technique to prevent such missed detection employs a method that detects contamination on a transport belt so that sheet position can be correctly detected prior to sheet feed. However, such detection may need to be conducted for each page, thereby degrading overall printing efficiency (or printing productivity) of an image forming apparatus.